Still Life with Shirt and Sheep by Kay Sexton

I saw his shirt on a fence post. Draped. It was like a film set; misty day, dew on the grass, sound of sheep tearing salty mouthfuls from the estuary plain. And I was supposed to fall to my knees, clutching the damp shirt, and cry, 'It's his! Where is he?'

Instead I turned to the Woman Police Officer and said, 'Yes.'

She nods.

I nod.

There were still mysteries of course. Why had Alan taken his shirt off? Come to that, why had he walked through here at all, when in a couple of hours he was going to get back in the car, drive to the top of the cliff, and then over it?

Further along was the place they thought he'd stopped. A chalky hollow – sheep-bitten turf, a spill of cans and paper tissues.

'Did he smoke?' she asks, and I notice the past tense even though we're not supposed to be sure that he's in the car that's under the sea. But she knows. I know.

'No.' He never smoked, as long as I knew him, but there are cigarette ends crushed so hard they've buckled, spilling golden tobacco across the chalk scar.

'When he was younger ...' I offer, then shrug. Alan smoked when he was younger, before we met, but what's closed my mouth is the recognition that he's never going to be older. Younger, older, dead.

So maybe he came here for his final fling; an orgy of strong lager and cigarettes. How sad. Even his last pleasures seem pathetic – drinking beer and smoking fags, watched by sheep.

It's as if she reads my mind. 'We've located the shop where he purchased the cigarettes ...' she pauses. I wonder whether she talks normally when she gets home. Does she say 'I purchased milk' or once she's off-duty can she say 'bought' or 'got' like normal people?

'The cashier remembers him purchasing Scotch, too.'

I nod again. It's reassuring, in a twisted way, to know he went out with whisky inside him – not so pathetic after all.

'Did he ...' I start and stop. This is how life will be from now on. Start, stop. Every thought and act cut across by the finality of Alan's suicide. It's like an emotional level crossing. I can race up to it, but the barriers are always going to slam down, lights flashing, bells ringing, and stop me cold. Alan's dead and his death will punctuate my life, forever.

She makes a special face. Not exactly a smile because that would be inappropriate, but approaching a smile – a softening of the mouth and eyes that suggests she's on my side, if there is a side. Which there will be. Alan's parents will have a side, his colleagues too, and the police, like this softening woman in front of me, they'll have a side. And all these sides together add up to a house of cards, a broken building. There's a big hole in all this – which is Alan's side. All he's left us to work with is a trail of cigarettes and booze, abandoned clothing and a hire car driven over Beachy Head.

The mist is beginning to tatter. When we walked in, our shoes kicking plumes of water from the tough grass, fog held us like the wet cotton wool that beauticians press over your eyes during a facial. Now it is tearing apart, and through its shredded edges I can see the shoulder of the cliff, slumping in and out of view.

For two days the fog has stopped them raising the car, but now red lights glint on the beach below the cliff. The crane with its winch, the RNLI lifeboat, and the local press.

The man who found the tyre tracks was exercising his dog. It's his third, apparently; one overdose in her car, one man who jumped, and Alan. I wonder why he doesn't walk somewhere else. Perhaps it's like a treasure hunt – perhaps, every day, he clips on the lead and says, 'Come on dog, let's see if there's a suicide today.' Who knows what keeps people going? Who knows what made Alan decide to stop?

I could do with a cigarette, although I haven't smoked for over a year. Alan persuaded me to stop when we moved in together. Now I want something other than fog in my lungs.

She reads my mind again. Her hand plunges into her jacket and pulls out cigarettes and a lighter. We both inhale and exhale, adding another white layer to those around us.

'Sometimes I think suicide's hardest on the survivors,' she says. 'Like- murder's horrible and accidents are tragic, but suicide – people don't know what to say.'

Once more I get the feeling she's on my side, standing in the house of cards Alan destroyed along with himself. The sheep come closer, white on white. I look at the cliff again. It's white too.

'He came here to watch the car-park,' I say. 'He sat here till all the cars left. Then he drove up there.' I point my cigarette.

She frowns, then nods. It makes sense.

Then what? He'd been sitting in the late afternoon sun, hot enough to take his shirt off. When he got to the top did he stop the car and look at the sea? Did he drive through the car park, onto the turf, towards the headland, without stopping? Did he fasten or unfasten his seatbelt? Where the windows open or closed? Did he have music playing? Was the last cigarette burning between his fingers? Why? The unanswerable question – why?

She pinches out her cigarette. I take one last drag and drop mine, stamping it until nothing is left but a smear. I clap my hands and sheep scatter. She half-smiles and turns, pointing the way back. I nod, but first lift my head and look at the cliff, as if I could run up there and off the edge. I turn and walk back to the police car.

--

Still Life with Shirt and Sheep by Kay Sexton was read by Sharron Byrne at the Liars' League Past & Future event on Tuesday 12 June 2007.

As well as writing for the UK's premier sustainability journal, Green Futures, Pushcart-nominated Kay Sexton is a finalist in the University of Hertfordshire Writing Award . She blogs about writing fiction at http://writingneuroses.blogspot.com and has a regular column at www.moondance.org. Her fiction is widely anthologised.

News

Thanks to our faithful fans' nominations we were shortlisted (along with four other eminent & excellent events) in the Best Regular Spoken Word Night category at the Saboteur Awards 2016! We didn't win (though congrats to Manchester's Bad Language, who did) but we certainly enjoyed the awards party cocktails ...

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They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here